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ART MOVEMENT : DaDa ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dada is absurd.
Dada is unpredictable.
Dada is random.
Dada is anarchy.
Dada is Anti-Art
Dada is a child's word for "hobbyhorse" in French; "yes, yes" in Romanian; and "there, there" in German, and the brand name of a popular soap and hair tonic at the time (1916).
As the artists themselves proclaimed, "Dada means nothing."
Like the edgiest rock and hip-hop, Dada was young,
smart, crude, angry, and outrageous. Dadaists, an interna-
tional hodgepodge of mostly twenty-something artists
and writers, were dismayed by the stupidity and horror of
World War I. The conflict was unprecedented in human
history because of its scale and its terrifying new weaponry.
On average almost 900 Frenchmen and 1,300 Germans
died every day between the outbreak of war in August 1914
and the armistice that ended it in November 1918. All
told, nearly ten million people were killed.
For the dadaists, World War I discredited the notion
of a civilized European society. As dadaist Hugo Ball noted, the war proved that “this world of systems has gone to
pieces.” For Ball and his contemporaries, the pillars of
society—law, culture, faith, language, economy, educa-
tion, and the roles assigned to men and women—had
failed to prevent the war and its unparalleled destruction.
DADA AND THE ANTI-MASTERPIECE
Dada disowned the idea of the “masterpiece”—a great,
singular oil painting, like the Mona Lisa, made by a skilled
genius. Dadaists found oil painting pretentious, and they
ridiculed art history’s elite, from Leonardo da Vinci to Paul
Cézanne [fig. 4]. Against the backdrop of the war, dadaists
found this entire tradition of art pompous and bankrupt.
The Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush
MEDIA ARTS CLASS
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ART MOVEMENT : DaDa
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Dada is absurd.
Dada is unpredictable.
Dada is random.
Dada is anarchy.
Dada is Anti-Art
Dada is a child's word for "hobbyhorse" in French; "yes, yes" in Romanian; and "there, there" in German, and the brand name of a popular soap and hair tonic at the time (1916).
As the artists themselves proclaimed, "Dada means nothing."
Like the edgiest rock and hip-hop, Dada was young,
smart, crude, angry, and outrageous. Dadaists, an interna-
tional hodgepodge of mostly twenty-something artists
and writers, were dismayed by the stupidity and horror of
World War I. The conflict was unprecedented in human
history because of its scale and its terrifying new weaponry.
On average almost 900 Frenchmen and 1,300 Germans
died every day between the outbreak of war in August 1914
and the armistice that ended it in November 1918. All
told, nearly ten million people were killed.
For the dadaists, World War I discredited the notion
of a civilized European society. As dadaist Hugo Ball noted,
the war proved that “this world of systems has gone to
pieces.” For Ball and his contemporaries, the pillars of
society—law, culture, faith, language, economy, educa-
tion, and the roles assigned to men and women—had
failed to prevent the war and its unparalleled destruction.
DADA AND THE ANTI-MASTERPIECE
Dada disowned the idea of the “masterpiece”—a great,
singular oil painting, like the Mona Lisa, made by a skilled
genius. Dadaists found oil painting pretentious, and they
ridiculed art history’s elite, from Leonardo da Vinci to Paul
Cézanne [fig. 4]. Against the backdrop of the war, dadaists
found this entire tradition of art pompous and bankrupt.
Go to the CLASS BLOG for an assignment.
Click to download more info: ( dada_student_guide.pdf )
Dada Artists:
Otto Dix
Hans (Jean) Arp
Marcel Duchamp
Christian Schad
George Grosz
Hannah Hoch
Francis Picabia
Man Ray
Kurt Schwitters
Philippe Soupault
Joseph Stella